My girlfriend and I walked along Dark Hollow Falls, just off Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. It's a 1.5 mile roundtrip hike to the falls and back. The falls cascades 70 feet over greenstone. With the ascent up being about 400 feet over .75 mile, it made for a pretty steep climb. She had some trouble with it, but came through it fine.
Here's the new cover shot, and I'll toss in some more, as we took two trips here in the space of a week, taking advantage of a 7-day pass.
When we can save a little bit of money, we plan on getting a year-round National Parks pass.
The weekend before, we went to Horton Winery in Orange County, Va. and picked up a wine that will work well with an apple pie, once we get/make one. I can't believe that's my second wine tasting thing this year.
We tried several wines, and after we bought a bottle, left for Shenandoah National Park, where we drove from the Swift Run Gap entrance station east of Elkton to the Thornton Gap entrance station, which is a few miles east of Luray.
We walked part of one trail last week, climbing over numerous rocks before deciding to turn back, and then, after having spotted the Dark Hollows Falls trail last week, decided to walk this one last Saturday, the day after Tropical Storm Ernesto came through the region.
You could see some places along the drive where the storm had an effect, but after an overcast and misty morning, the sky cleared and it turned into a beautiful early September day--clear blues and whites above us, clear views for miles around and a nearly crisp day in the low 60s, which cooled down to the mid-50s by the time we began our hike here.
We saw one large group of about 10 people on the trail with us, and numerous couples making the trek down and back too, and we weren't the last to come back out of the trail, even though it was getting dark by the time we got back to the top.
We'll probably make a few more trips up here this fall.
What I love about this, and most other national parks, is that you can go to the same place many times and it'll be different each time.
We're also looking at visiting some western national parks in the spring of next year.
We plan to get the most out of the year-round pass.
One day, I'd like to do the drive starting at the top of the park and drive on through the Blue Ridge Parkway, which begins where Skyline Drive ends.
beautiful photos. I miss hiking.
Good thought on getting the most of your parks pass. I had a parks pass for the last year, and I used it for three parks. Still, I considered it my "extra tax" to support the park system that I love.
Posted by: Leah | Tuesday, September 05, 2006 at 01:47 PM